Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Over in the Corner, they're getting excited about the FMA thanks to yesterday's results:

If, after all that, a bellwether state like Missouri still approved its marriage amendment by a margin of 71 percent, people might want to rethink the notion that the Federal Marriage Amendment cannot win. There is a serious showdown coming up between the courts and the states. And when it becomes clear that all of the state constitutional amendments that are about to be passed could be voided by the U. S. Supreme Court, the national campaign for the Federal Marriage Amendment is going to take off like a rocket.

some of the letters to the editor the Joplin, MO paper gets about gay marriage. There's a lot of bigotry out there. One letter from this Sunday's paper (sorry, I don't think it's available online) called homosexuality an inherent evil. So, no, I'm not surprised the amendment passed by such a large margin. At least I can take solace that my God-sanctioned heterosexual marriage will now be stronger than ever, protected for eternity by this institutionalized discrimination, uh, somehow.

I possibly forget the Missouri primary race between Holden and McCaskill? She beat Holden with 51.6% of the vote. Was Holden, or any of his supporters, really surprised by this result? The man withheld state funds from school districts, forcing local tax increases all over the state. What was he thinking? Of any measure that voters are going to punish a politician over, it's going to be education.

Which leads me to a conundrum. Holden ran an ad listing his various endorsements, and among those listed was the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. Why are the two biggest teachers' unions supporting someone who was not a friend to education? I know that the NEA and AFT are in bed with the Democratic Party, but Holden's opponent was a Democrat. Are the Missouri chapters of the NEA and AFT so locked into the status quo that they can't distance themselves from someone like Holden?

in Kansas and Missouri last night. Exciting stuff. On my side of the of border, the hottest race was between Taff and Kobach for the 3rd Congressional district. They'll be evaluating those results for a while, as Kobach came out on top by only 87 votes. There are some provisional ballots yet to count, so we'll see.

The other contentious issue was the proposed Sprint Center in downtown KCMO. This won handily. One of the things that entertained me about the fight was how Mayor Kay Barnes handled the oppposition. Enterprise Rent-A-Car was the big opponent, as the measure imposes a $4.00 per day usage tax on rental cars. The idea, of course, is that only out-of-towners rent cars, so there'd be no tax on actual KC residents. This, of course, is crap, because Enterprise does most of its business with auto dealers and repair shops as a supplier of loaner vehicles. Enterprise has more than a dozen locations in the KC Metro, only one of which is at the airport. The idea, then, that only tourists will be hit is absolutely false.

Anyway, the Mayor tried to paint Enterprise as this evil St. Louis business entity out to crush the economic growth of Kansas City. This is also crap, but it apparently worked.

David, on your side of the border, you've got Amendment's One and Two: Gambling in Rockaway and a ban on gay marriage. The gambling measure failed, and Missouri becomes the first state in the Union to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

Neither result surprised me. Rockaway lost, in my opinion, because they engaged in a bit of duplicity. They attempted to paint their new casino as merely a resort. If they had come clean and said what they were doing, they probably would have pulled it off. It's not like Missouri doesn't have casinos elsewhere.

The victory of the gay marriage ban doesn't surprise me, but it does disappoint me. I don't think there's anything the opponents of Amendment Two could have done to overcome the deep opposition to gay marriage, seeing as how the measure won 70% to 30%.

Monday, August 02, 2004

Fred Phelps is a schmuck.

The best thing to do is to simply ignore him, pretend he and his group aren't there. It'll be interesting to see if he really is going to protest the denial of free speech or if it'll be the same ol' "God hates fags" crap.

and it stunk. Roger Ebert was right: you'll want your money back. I won't give it away other than to say that the twist at the end is so silly that I thought there must be another twist. Alas, it never came.

To be fair, the first part of the film is okay. Had it ended differently, I'd probably say the first part of the film was pretty good, but the ending stinks so badly that it soils the rest and renders whatever good parts there may be utterly pointless. Bah.

Segue for a minute to Sweden, itself. Apparently, Sweden sentenced a minister to a prison term for inciting hatred against homosexuals during a 2003 sermon. (For the record, the law in question is wrong. The minister, from all accounts, preached, essentially, an Old Testament view of homosexuality. He didn't, as far as I know, call for their summary execution or anything along those lines. He said that homosexuality was unnatural. Whether or not you believe the minister, he shouldn't be jailed for delivering a sermon. Rights to religious belief and expression are being trampled, here.)

Now, enter perennial Democratic candidate for governor and overall gay-baiting nut-job, Fred Phelps. The decision mortified him and his followers, but lacking the resources to fly to Sweden to protest (where they'd be summarily jailed for the same crime as the minister if they went), they've decided to compromise and come to Lindsborg. Sweden, Little Sweden USA, you see the logic?

I guess they're planning on picketing the Catholic church a couple of times (those stalwarts of pro-gay marriage), my home church, Bethany Lutheran Church, the Messiah Lutheran Church, and I believe they're picketing one of the Baptist churches as well.

Why? What the hell? What does any of this have to do with Lindsborg? Is he going to try to get us to disassociate ourselves from our cultural heritage because of a stupid Swedish law that jailed a minister? What a whack job.

Thankfully, I won't be visiting home that weekend, so I only have to read about it in my hometown paper.

must be happening. Last night, I had a vivid dream that I was going to take care of a horse that belonged to Dave Mauch, an old high school classmate of mine. In the dream, I was worried about shoeing the horse and was afraid that I might harm the horse if I had to use nails. I was asking Dave all sorts of questions about it, how to do it, was it even necessary and so on. He just looked at me like I was a moron, which, when in comes to shoeing horses in either dreamland or reality, I suppose I would be.

Well, then this morning on the radio, the DJ said he was rolling through Oklahoma this weekend and came across the Oklahoma School of Horseshoeing: South Campus. He thought it was a joke - apparently believing this is no longer a needed skill, much less one that would require more than one campus to teach - until he found their website.

These sorts of things come in 3's. If I receive another sign, I will quit my job and become a cowboy. Or at least a horseshoe boy. Fate wills it.